Using the Forums at Tintinologist.org

Rules and policies

  1. Keep one account per person.
  2. Keep posts on-topic, constructive, family-friendly and of general interest.
  3. Be lawful. Do not ask for or distribute illegal material (e.g. unofficial Tintin works or unauthorised copies of copyrighted works).
  4. No self-promotion or business advertising. Do not use the forum primarily to promote your own products, projects or websites.
  5. Write in English, using standard grammar and punctuation.
  6. Posts are the sole opinion and responsibility of the poster.
  7. By posting, the poster grants Tintinologist.org a royalty-free, perpetual, non-exclusive, unrestricted, worldwide licence to use the submitted content in any way for any purpose.
  8. Tintinologist.org may modify, move or remove any user contribution, or take action against any account, at any time, for any reason.
  9. These terms/rules may be updated from time to time. Users are responsible for keeping up to date with the current rules.

Creating an account

You only need an account if you want to post. One account per person.

  1. Select "Create account" in the menu.
  2. Read and agree to the rules and policies.
  3. Complete the form:
    Username – 3 to 20 characters: letters (a to z) and numbers, starting with a letter. You can also use one space and one underscore, between letters or numbers. It is case-sensitive.
    Email – the address we send your password to.

Welcome email (your password)

When you create your account, we email you your username and password. It can take up to 24 hours to arrive.

Did not receive the welcome email?

  1. Check your spam or junk folder.
  2. Add tintinologist.org to your safe senders list, so our emails are not blocked.
  3. Request a new password. Check your spam folder for that email too.
  4. Still nothing? Contact our webmaster.

Signing in

  1. On a computer, select "Sign in" in the menu on any page (on the forums home page the sign-in boxes are already open at the top). On a phone, select "Sign in" at the top of any page.
  2. Enter your username and password, then select "Sign in". New members: both are in your welcome email.

Having trouble signing in?

  1. Usernames and passwords are case-sensitive: check capital letters.
  2. Your browser must allow cookies from tintinologist.org. Most browsers do this unless you have changed their settings.
  3. Forgotten your password? See Resetting a forgotten password.

Managing your profile

  1. Sign in.
  2. On a computer, select your username at the top of the page. On a phone, choose "Edit profile" from the Menu.
  3. Change what you need (everything except your username), then select "Update profile" to save.

Resetting a forgotten password

  1. Select "Forgotten password?" next to the sign-in boxes.
  2. Enter the email address of your forum account.
  3. We will email you a new password. Select the link in the email to activate it.
  4. Sign in with the new password. To choose your own, see Managing your profile.

Using the search engine

  1. Click on the "Search" link in the menu to search the forums using keyword(s).
  2. Search results are sorted by post time in descending order (new posts are shown first).

Making a new post or starting a new topic/thread

  1. Do a search on your question first—chances are, someone else has already asked the same question, and received an answer.
  2. Locate the "Make a new post" form at the bottom of each topic listing page.
  3. Use appropriate language encoding (e.g. UTF-8) before you input special symbols (e.g., accented characters such as é ).
  4. Enter a topic title in the "Make new post" box.
  5. Enter your the body of your message in the "Message" box.
  6. If you want to be notified by email whenever someone replies to your post, click the "Email me when someone replies" box.
  7. Click "Post".
  8. To make another post, repeat the steps above. Please note that to discourage spamming and flooding, users can only post once per a set time.

Email notifications

  1. To receive email notifications whenever someone replies to your post, click the "Email me when someone replies" box below the message posting and preview buttons.
  2. To stop receiving notifications, select the appropriate topic, click on the "Cancel email notifications" link.

Formatting messages

Use the BB-code buttons to help you to insert formatting tags into your post (the buttons require JavaScript support to work).

Just enter the full URL or email address and watch it turn into a real hyperlink. No BB code is needed.
Turn a word or a phrase (instead of the full URL) into a Web link
BB code: [url=complete URL]word or phrase you want to turn into a hyperlink[/url]
Example: [url=http://www.example.com/]View this example Web site![/url] produces View this example web site!
Note: Do not put spaces/quotation marks/apostrophes inside the [url=URL] tag.
Turn a word or a phrase into an email address (instead of showing the full email address) into an email link
BB code: [email=emailaddress]text you want to turn into an email link[/email]
Example: [email=user@example.com]Email me![/email] produces Email me!
Note: Do not put spaces/quotation marks/apostrophes inside the [email=] tag.
Display an image (the use of this option is discouraged. Please provide the URL of the image instead.)
BB code: [imgs]full url of the image[/imgs]
Example: - [imgs]http://www.example.com/img/example.jpg[/imgs]
Note 1: you can link only to .gif or .jpg files from http:// servers.
Note 2: Do not put spaces/quotation marks/apostrophes inside the [img] tag.
Bold text
BB code: [b]text you want to bold[/b]
Example: [b]Achtung![/b] produces Achtung!
Note: No spaces between the text and the [b][/b] tags
Italicise text
BB code: [i]text[/i]
Example: [i]Achtung![/i] produces Achtung!
Note: No spaces between the text and the [i][/i] tags
Underline text
BB code: [u]Underlined[/u]
Example: [u]Achtung![/u] produces Achtung!
Note: No spaces between the text and the [i][/i] tags

Quoting messages

To quote messages: (this feature requires JavaScript support to work)

  1. Select the text you want to quote
  2. Press the "quote" link
  3. The selected text will be automatically inserted into the reply box at the bottom of the page.

Locking topics/threads

Staff members can lock/unlock any topic.

To lock a topic:

  1. Sign in.
  2. Go to the topic you want to lock.
  3. At the bottom of the page, click on the "lock topic" link.

Editing messages (original topic line cannot be edited)

  1. Locate your post.
  2. Click "Edit".

Cannot edit your messages?

If a member of staff has edited and locked your post, you cannot undo the changes.

Currently, posts that have not been edited by staff can be edited for up to 48 hours after they have been posted. In most cases this allows for time to fix typos and broken links, but also helps to prevent individuals from editing their posts to back-track a particular stance or add a heap of new information. (When an old post is edited, it does not appear in the recent posts list; therefore, if the post contains a lot of new content, it will be overlooked by most people.)

Deleting messages

Staff do not accept requests for removing messages, so please think carefully before you post.